


Anna and her bicycle

by Abby_black



Category: Original Work
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Sad, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 16:16:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19380262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_black/pseuds/Abby_black
Summary: Anna rides her bicycle around an sees the city trough new eyes which are her own but not entirely





	Anna and her bicycle

In April 1946 the afternoons were quiet and depressing. One day you could hear the screeching noise of small wheels which had to be oiled up in the near future. A few people were walking around in the streets and talked to each other in small hushed voices. She rode her bike around the dirty and in rubble covered streets. Her father died and her mother told her many stories about him. She told her how her father saved them and fought bravely. Her mother told her “ Anna, your father was a brave man and died protecting you.” Anna believed her. She drove her bicycle around the neighborhood. There were other families where the father was brave and died protecting them. Anna barely remembered her father. She remembers him as a tall, loud man with a loud laugh who gave her big hugs and kissed her good night every evening before she went to bed. Sometimes she liked to imagine how it would be like to still have her father. He could protect her from the mean boys who lived across the street or could chase away the monster under her bed which tries to eat her hair. She also remembers her mother who was happy and smiled with her father, danced with him and kissed him goodbye before he went to work.  
Now her mother doesn’t smile, doesn’t dance and doesn’t kiss anybody goodbye anymore . Her mother always said her father was a brave man. She believed her. On occasion Anna hears her mother cry herself to sleep and sometimes crawls into her mothers’ bed and tries to comfort her but ends up crying herself. She continues riding her small bicycle around.  
Anna looked around and all she can see is gray rubble on the ground and dusty clouds hanging in the air wanting to swallow every weak sun beam. The street was littered with holes where Anna had to drive her bicycle around. In the distance she can see the impact on the other streets. The park she and her father used to play in is completely destroyed. The trees look gray and lifeless, the lake is filled with dust and broken off branches. All of the swings are broken and the sand where she used to build sand castles with her father is dirty and crumbled .  
The once crowded streets now empty. Many lost and never coming back. Everything in the city that was bright and colorful is now dark and lifeless. The sun is creating a shallow shadow over the streets. Lamp posts are switching on and create a gloomy feeling. Anna shivers on her bicycle and wishes once more for her father to keep her warm.  
She can see the church to which her and her mother go every Sunday morning to pray for her father and all the other fathers that died. She should be home by now but she continues to ride her bicycle around. The cemetery where her father is buried is way behind her when she steps off her bicycle.  
She puts down her bicycle at the edge of the woods and continues walking deeper into it . She passes a clearing and swears to her dying day that she saw several fairies flying over the small pond there. The small river Worseld is making its way through the narrow standing trees. Anna sits down and slides off her shoes. Her feet are now dangling in the cold water and she sighs contentedly. If she would walk right through the water she could cross the border to the next city. She imagined how the city Clafumondo would differ from here. Maybe her father wouldn’t have died and could play with her in the city park. Maybe her mother never had to be sad . Maybe Anna even could forget the mean boys. Maybe even the park in Clafumondo still would be pretty and full of joy.  
She knows that these thoughts are just of dreaming nature and are not reality because she has been in the city and has seen it . She has seen the damage in the cities. Everything looks the same on the other side of the river.  
Slowly the moon is rising in the sky and its light makes the river look like molten silver. Anna’s feet seem to be pearly white. She takes her feet out of the water and goes back to the clearing. The moss is like it was made to be laid upon and she lays down on the soft ,fluffy ,healthy green moss. The moss tickles her arms and she giggles. The joyful sound is swallowed by the trees surrounding her.  
After a while Anna gets up. She goes to pick up her bicycle from the forests' edge . While riding the bicycle she now hears the quiet sounds of the owls sitting in the trees. Even though the temperature has dropped, Anna feels warm and secure. It was like it had never felt warmer before. She got past the graveyard, passed the church and the house of the mean boys. In little to no time she arrived home.  
She went upstairs and looked around. The little flat with the painted walls appeared to haven’t changed at all since years. Anna knew better. The painted walls once were uncolored until her father and her painted them in all the colors they could think of. Her fathers shoes still stood next to her mother’s as waiting to be worn. Anna knew they would never be worn again and forced herself to look away. Her father’s keys hung on the wall as if waiting to be picked up. She knew the keys would continue hanging there.  
She then realized that you could see the impact not only outside on the streets but also on the inside of the buildings. Deep in the cities landscape as well as the fact that her mother still told her to lay the table for three.

Sometimes she wished that it all never happened.  
She wished that the war and the death didn’t happen but she knew that was just imagination.  
She and all people around knew about what happened during the so called Second World War and how it could not be reversed.  
She thought about her bike downstairs and imagined how long it would take her to get somewhere where one could all the war and deaths that happened.  
Probably a long way to go, Anna realized.


End file.
